Editorial An Ode To Rattly Old Bracelets

Despite the inherent obsolescence of their creations, watch companies continue to innovate. Innovation is a fundamental characteristic of watchmaking since its beginnings—the relentless pursuit of accurate timekeeping in the face of nature’s best efforts to defy it. Tourbillons defied gravity, bi-metallic springs defied temperature, and rubber gaskets defied moisture. SuperLuminova glows all night and won’t turn yellow with age. Sapphire crystals don’t scratch. Same with ceramic bezels. And of course, the new era of silicon movement components have revolutionized the way watchmakers combat the evils of magnetism.

And then there are bracelets. Pick up any vintage watch on a metal band and compare it to a modern equivalent and the difference is obvious and profound. Solid screwed links that don’t stretch, tight tolerances, clasps that ratchet, micro-adjust and compensate for water pressure-induced neoprene shrinkage are all improvements of the past decade or two. In fact, the bracelet is arguably the most noticeable difference between a watch of today and one of 20, 30, 40 years ago, at least to the layman. But I, for one, still prefer the flimsy, rattly, lightweight bracelets of yore, and I suspect I’m not alone in this.

An old Sub on an equally old bracelet is a true classic.

In the years before Rolex upgraded its sports watches with solid end-link bracelets and the whiz-bang GlideLock clasp, people lambasted the Crown for its outmoded thin bracelets with stamped clasps and flimsy end-links. Rolex was late to the bracelet upgrade game, still fitting its last generation Submariner, like my own 14060M, with the same venerable 93150 bracelet found on so many Subs, GMT-Masters, and Explorers since the 1970s. I’ve worn my share of modern Rolex watches with the GlideLock clasp and acknowledge that it is an example of supreme engineering, easy to adjust on the fly and oozing quality. But I’m always happy to get back to my own old Rollies—slide on that perfectly weighted bracelet and double-snap shut the crisp FlipLock clasp. It’s like slipping into a well-worn pair of jeans.

ADVERTISEMENT

The bracelets on new watches are masterfully engineered without a doubt, but one thing they lack is that perfectly weighted comfort of the old ones. Most of the bands fitted to the new breed of divers, whether an Omega or a TAG, are simply too heavy and I find that I prefer most of these watches on straps instead. I suspect much of that weight lies in the clasps, which are solid steel, machined instead of stamped, with more parts in them. This distributes the weight evenly around the wrist and often almost doubles the weight of the watch itself. Don’t get me wrong, I like a bit of heft to my watch, but I like it to sit on top of my wrist and not feel like I’m wearing a bicycle chain.

Structurally, these old bracelets definitely aren't as robust as their modern companions.

New bracelets are often a lot more complicated as well. Ratcheting clasps present more failure points and areas that can collect grit—sand, salt, and human DNA. I’ve had a fancy clasp gum up on a dive trip, requiring a lengthy soak and some elbow grease to free it up again. Sure, an old Seiko jubilee couldn’t expand to accommodate a tropics-swollen wrist, but sit at the tiki bar with a toothpick and in a few seconds you could do it yourself.

An easy way to check for stretch is to simply hold the bracelet horizontally and see how much it droops. This one is still pretty tight.

Aesthetically, many new bracelets miss the mark too. They’ve become too wide, too beefy and don’t taper gracefully at the clasp the way the old ones did. The way the bracelets on so many 1960s watches widened out at the lugs accentuated the lines of the watch itself and the narrowed clasps were comfortable and unobtrusive. There are some modern exceptions though. The rivet-style bracelet Oris offers with its excellent Divers SixtyFive gets it right, going from 20 millimeters at the lugs to a perfect 14 at the clasp, with a stepped-down taper at each link. Similarly, the rivet-style bracelet on the Tudor Black Bay is also a vast improvement over the first bracelet offered on the popular retro diver. It captures a true vintage flavor that suits the watch well, though I wish the lug width wasn’t 22 millimeters and it’s still not as light as the old C&I riveted ones of the late ‘60s. Of course, neither the Oris nor the Tudor have actual rivets, which were a pain to size and not as sturdy as modern screwed links. That said, I have a riveted C&I bracelet dating to 1970 on an old Submariner that is still doing just fine, despite a healthy amount of stretch.

ADVERTISEMENT

Besides these “faux-rivet” examples, several other modern bracelets on vintage-styled watches also try to recapture the allure of the old ones. Doxa fits beads-of-rice bracelets to its modern SUB divers, and TAG Heuer has one for its excellent Autavia re-issue. But neither comes close to capturing the magic of their historical inspirations, whose individual crimped “beads” drape on the wrist like a Mardi Gras necklace. These might just be the most comfortable bracelets of them all.

On a modern bracelet this watch wouldn't have nearly the same charm.

Don’t get me wrong, the new breed of bracelets is superior in almost every objective way—durability, functionality, ergonomics—but wearing mechanical watches is hardly an objective thing to do. I love the festive jingling of the loose end-links on my Omega Speedmaster, the satisfying snap of the foldover clasp on my Sub, the way my old Doxa T.Graph hangs slightly off my wrist, barely supported by its narrow beads-of-rice, or that slippers-and-sweatpants comfort of the stretched-out Jubilee on my old Seiko.

I’d never hold out hope for a modern brand to go back to folded-link or riveted bracelets, ill-fitting end links or stamped clasps. Progress is a train that only goes one direction. But that doesn’t mean I have to stay on board.